Toy Story 3 No More!

Let the good times roll. According to the LA TIMES (reg. req’d or BugMeNot), TOY STORY 3 has been shelved. The announcement comes hardly as a surprise: Disney started the TOY STORY 3 unit primarily as a bargaining chip for these negotiations. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see, for once, an animated project that shouldn’t be made get dumped. Here’s the TIMES:

In remarks made during a Tuesday conference call with analysts, Iger and Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs implied what other sources confirmed Wednesday: that Disney’s 150-plus-person Pixar sequels unit – which is housed in a Glendale warehouse and is already at work on “Toy Story 3” – will soon be no more.

“We feel very strongly that if the sequels are going to be made, we want the people who were involved in the original films involved in the sequels,” Jobs said.

Iger sounded the same note.

“It was really important to me that the people who made the films originally, who had the vision, who knew the characters and the essence of these films get a shot at making any films that were derivative,” the Disney chief said.

“While Disney might have been able to make them, Pixar making them is just so much different,” Iger added. “Not to take away from the talent of other people who might have been picked to make them.”